I went to Double Fine's PAX meetup a few weeks back and met up with Klamp. While there he reminded me that I still have not watched any of the Broken Age Documentary. So I went home and proceeded to do so. Then in Episode 4 (Part 2) there is a moment where Ray Crook is showing some of his early animations of Nathan "Bagel" Stapley's drawings. THAT was immediately what I wanted to do. I have done some puppet work in After Effects, but have had trying it in Maya on the list of "Stuff I want to do" for a while now. I busted out my sketchbook and found a drawing I liked. This one (I think I drew this during a music theory class.)

I then began to change him around a bit and make him more appealing and better for a puppet.

I settled on this one.

I began to work him out in Photoshop, while thinking about the world he lived in and what he could get up to in a short time period, that would test various lighting scenarios and angles, while still telling some kind of story. From that story I made a rough animatic, less for timing, and more so I could get an idea of all the set pieces I would need to make. Once I had that I began working on the environments and finished up the snail. I packed him in a UV space, and left some headroom for anything I might want to add later (Incidentally I did change the way his shell was cut, so I was able to use some of that space.)

From there it all went to Maya, where I sat and looked at it for too long. Finally I started rigging him. For the sake of time and simplicity, I just animated his bones, while putting the angle controls, parka on/off switch, and blink controls on a master controller.

I rendered it all out in various layers, then looked at it in After Effects, then I wrote down everything that needed fixing.

Then it was on to good ol' After Effects fun, lights, saturation sliders, and a buncha masks. I rendered them all out and went to premiere where I made the final edits and added in the sound.

I've uploaded to Vimeo, because Youtube wasn't really doing the audio any favors. Post-Mortem: First off, story, this one leaves a lot up to the imagination, which is lucky, because if people didn't fill in the blanks, it would just be shit. I hope to do this again, and next time I will plan out a proper story. I also think it might be of benefit for me to use the animatic for timing too, as much as I love just adding buffer time and trying things in post, I need to have a better idea of timing before hand. Lastly, I think I would spend a bit more time rigging next time, this dude isn't really friendly to pick up and use, I have to keep in my head the idea that someone else has to be able to understand and use the rig too (Which sadly means controllers a lot of the time). I do have other plans for the snail, but whether it's with him or not, I do plan on doing this again. It was a great fusion of 2D and 3D work and loads of fun to animate! -Campy